This community education project was aimed to raise awareness on the experiences of migrants with no recourse to public funds (NRPF) and build capacity in migrant communities by sharing information about their rights, entitlements and available support services. Access to information and knowing your rights is crucial for survival in a hostile system that is purposefully designed in a way that is impossible to navigate without the help and advocacy by legal professionals.
Managing this project as part of my role as community engagement manager at the South London Refugee Association (SLRA) included planning and coordinating an in-depth co-production process with the participants and film-makers over the course of two years (2021-23). We organised regular meetings with a group of women with lived experience of destitution as a result of having precarious immigration status, to discuss the project idea, meet regularly to speak about the issues the members were facing and how they wanted to present them in the videos.
The videos were launched during the London Challenge Poverty Week in November 2023 and continue to be shared and used for trainings and educational events for social workers or at schools and children centres. The videos were also shared in an interactive workshop for social workers as part of the ‘Stand Up! Speak Out! Solidarity Knows No Borders Training Series: A Toolkit to Resist the Hostile Environment’ in 2023. (Find out more about the Solidarity knows no Border network and how you can take part and sign their charter on their website.)
If you want to support the on-going and much needed frontline support, immigration advice, and community engagement projects by the South London Refugee Association, visit their website to find out more and donate.